Inside the shadowy underground of Korean monitor sales - mccluskeyvarty2001

If you're in the market for a new high-definition desktop supervise, observe: You may be able to peck a very good Peninsula-made display for far less money than what you'd pass on, suppose, an Asus, Dingle, HP, or Samsung model. Convinced, you'll have to cope with odd product stigmatization, limited functionality, and less-than-divine product design; but if your principal concern is image quality, a Korean display purchased on eBay could be just the ticket.

It all depends on your appetite for gamble.

When I first stumbled across a long thread all but Korean monitors at Overclock.net, I didn't need such notice. Just when other thread popped up on Quarter to Three, one of my regular Web hangouts, my interest was piqued. The first post was pretty disinclined merely, as it clothed, mistaken. Both threads gave advice on the different manufacturers and resellers, and included descriptions of feature article sets and information on which outfits were the to the highest degree undeviating. I was still hesitant, sure, but I began to recollect that this Korean-monitors thing was for real. So I dug deeper.

On eBay I found numerous small Korean resellers offering 27-inch, 2560-by-1440-pixel monitors at ace, sub-$400 prices. And many of them listed dominating vendee expiation rates, which eBay buyers generate themselves.

You can feel hoards of monitors with IPS 2560-by-1440 panels on eBay.

I was still flighty about purchasing a monitor from an foreign source: Even if a reseller's client support is superior, merchant marine a faulty monitor back to Dae-Han-Min-Gook isn't a deep-cost try. Then I noticed that both of the resellers were offering "perfect pixel" guarantees. Those weren't increased warranty exchange programs, withal. Instead, "perfect pixel" meant that the reseller opened the package, wired the display, and visually inspected information technology; the reseller would ship only those monitors without fresh or missing pixels.

So I decided to take aim the plunge. But whom to buy from? And which particular display should I choose?

Putting my money where my mouth is

When you search eBay for one of these Korean IPS displays, you won't find familiar brands such as LG Beaver State Samsung. Instead you'll be superficial at something from Imon, Shimian, or Yamakasi. Yes, these are not household names.

Clearly, most of these items are actually inward labels, because they'rhenium all rather similar. I found some monitors that cost less than $300, only typically they were untested displays with a bingle DVI dual-link connector. Most of the to the lowest degree-expensive displays don't patronage HDCP content protection, then if you should want to play Blu-ray movies or other protected happy from set-top boxes, you Crataegus oxycantha be taboo of luck.

You can find units with additive features, such as HDMI and DisplayPort support, but the costs then rise up to a bit over $400. Even then, you'll face-off limitations. HDMI inputs, for example, English hawthorn not support the higher-bandwidth HDMI 1.4a standard, so output answer wish embody small-scale to 1920 by 1080 pixels when you connect the monitor via HDMI. Units with HDMI 1.4a support rise to almost $500.

All I wanted was another LCD monitor for a gambling system I have in my basement lab, so I didn't really need bells and whistles such as HDMI connectors and collective-in speakers. Eventually I settled on a Shimian QH270-Fatless from a vendor called "ta_planet". The net cost was $363.95, which included an unneeded $10 for the "perfect pixel" insure. That cost also included FedEx shipping from Han-Gook. Thus all in all, I well thought out it a spate.

This is the 27-inch Shimian monitor I bought on eBay.

About an hour after placing the order, I received an eBay substance from ta_planet telling Pine Tree State that the monitoring device was out of carry. But the content also aforesaid that ta_planet would be happy to ship an alternate display with improved-in speakers at no extra accuse, and with the "perfect pixel" guarantee integral.

I forthwith filed this in my "too good to be true" moral folder. "Uh-oh," I thought to myself. "Here it starts. I'm going to get a composition of detritus."

I thought about the problem for a few hours, and then responded to ta_planet via eBay messaging, accepting the offer. Within 10 minutes I received a response declaring, in effect, that ta_planet had received a freshly shipment of the QH270-Lites, and would be shipping one of those out to Pine Tree State per the archetype order.

My new monitor, in pictures (or, the $364 interrogative)

A few days late, a fairly slim boxwood arrived via FedEx. It came complete with weird stickers and customs documents.

The Shimian QH270-Fatless expose seems reasonably blood line in other shipway. The glossy shallow is a little vexing, but, hey: $364!

The controls are small buttons built into the right tail end surface of the chassis. You can see the icon for the luminance (backlight) verify. The two buttons adjacent to the sun icon dim or brighten the display. Out of the box, the concealment is manner too bright. Those other buttons? They do nothing. They're probably there for higher-end versions of the display that possess inbuilt hardware grading. The back of the unit also has speaker grilles, even though this display has no speakers.

Arsenic expected, the exhibit is DVI multiple-link only when. You must use dual-liaison to hitting the bandwidth necessary for 2560 by 1440 resolving, anyhow. A dual-link DVI cable was included in the package.

One key restriction of this $364 display is its stand—one of the worst I've seen along an LCD panel. It sits real contemptible to the desk, and offers cypher adjustments.

As luck would have it this stand—salvaged from an old, nonfunctional Gateway display—connected via a plate that attaches to the VESA mount. If I didn't have this stand, I'd have to live with the crummy enclosed stand, OR spend $30 to $100 just about for a to a greater extent applied science stand. Be sure to factor that into your cost estimate if you're pricing one of these monitors. Around of the more expensive displays I saw on eBay seemed to come with better stands.

I made some interesting discoveries when I unboxed the supervise. Information technology uses an external, switching power brick that can run in either 220-240V Oregon 110-120V mode. Every bit with nigh of these bricks, one end is a standard three-pin, capable of acceptive virtually ability cords. However, only a Korean power cord came in the box, so I had to dig up a standard cord with U.S. plugs.

No documentation or CD attended the admonisher, but that didn't surprise me much.

Underside stemma: Fire IT up!

Finally, it was time to stop scrutinizing the aesthetics of the reveal and actually use it. I connected the Deciliter-DVI cable to a system running a Sandy Span Core i7 CPU and an Nvidia GTX 580 graphics card. I checked out complete-white images and all-black images to see if the expose had issues with individual pixels. Careful examination revealed no hot or missing pixels. The black image exhibited a small uniformity trouble, though: In high fatal mode, the backlight in the lower correct of the display was a touch brighter than the rest of the display. Simply IT was hard to spot unless I was looking it.

Since installing the monitor, I've used IT for some lengthy play sessions. I've seen no issues with frame rate, flickering, or another potentiality pitfalls. So the QH270-Lite is working well for its selected job.

It lives!

I wouldn't recommend this sort of monitor for modifier picture taking make for or video editing. Although you can, in theory, calibrate the display, the backlight hotspot is probably a dissident for any sincere job. Also, since the display has no assembled-in computer hardware for scaling the video, you're at the clemency of the art card and driver when it comes to video rendering quality. For instance, on my screen, HD video from Netflix streaming looked very soft, whether at 2560 by 1440 or 1920 by 1080.

You can spend up to $150 for extra features, so much as video scaling and mellow-bandwidth HDMI. But my QH270-Lite has acquitted itself well as a standard desktop monitor, and it sure as shooting handles games with assuredness. Maybe I was just lucky. Quite a few users have bought such displays from a variety of Korean resellers on eBay with respectable results. Just others have received very penniless displays, with plenty of dead pixels. It pays to research the vendors, and it's worthwhile to hand o'er a few supernumerary dollars for a gross pixel guarantee.

Don't want to shoot a chance upon eBay and on Korean shipping? Some of these monitors are starting to show upward at resellers in the US Government. E.g., Microcenter is offer a presentation labeled the Auria EQ276W for $399, and it seems quite confusable to these Korean displays. You can also buy from Amazon resellers, though they be given to ship now from Korea.

What this experience really illustrates is how internationalist tech purchasing has become. In matchless sense, buying a Korean monitor is like buying a intermediate-market product. However, grey-haired-grocery products are typically brand-name gear intended for overseas customers but sold into the US Government instead, whereas these monitors are purely local anesthetic Korean brands. If you do find one at a nearby source, you may get better defend. Wherever you patronise, be aware of the risks. If you can't afford to fall behind $300 to $400, you might not want to take a fortune.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/461363/inside-the-shadowy-underground-of-korean-monitor-sales.html

Posted by: mccluskeyvarty2001.blogspot.com

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